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clared and our Saviour himself in thisS ER M. very place fufficiently intimates, when immediately after That feeming Refusal, yet he effectually granted this Stranger's request, by healing the infirmity of her daughter. And in his inftructions to his Difciples, ch. x. 5; he fpeaks with less obfcurity: Go not into the way of the Gentiles; but go rather to the loft sheep of the House of Ifrael. Which afterwards was still more clearly expreffed; Acts xiii. 46; It was necessary that the word of God hould first he spoken to the Jews, but afterwards to the Gentiles.

IN St Paul's Epiftles, there are many Inftances of the like manner of speaking. 1 Tim. ii. 14; Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the tranfgreffion His Meaning is not to say, that Adam was not deceived at all; but that the Woman being first deceived, began the tranfgreffion. 1 Cor. vi. 12; All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: He never intended to affirm, that all Actions were lawful; but that of those Actions which were confeffedly lawful, yet it did not follow that they

were

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SER M. Were All expedient. In the same epistle, ch. i. 17; Chrift fent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gofpel: He does not mean absolutely, that he was not to baptize at all; but that his proper and peculiar Office, was not so much to baptize men with his own hands, as to preach the Gospel to them in order to their converfion. To mention but One place more; Rom. vi. 17; God be thanked, fays he, that ye were the Servants of Sin; but ye have obeyed from the heart That Form of Doctrine which was delivered you.

Accord

ing to the manner of fpeaking in modern languages, it must needs feem a very ftrange and unufual expreffion: God be thanked, that ye were the Servants of Sin: But in the Jewish Idiom it was very intelligible, that the Two parts of the fentence should be taken as One: God be thanked, for that ye who Formerly were the Servants of Sin, have Now obeyed from the Heart That Form of Doctrine which was delivered you.

AND thus therefore likewife in the words of the Text; if the connexion of the whole be confidered, and the two, parts

I.

parts of the Sentence be united in one; SER M. (Take no thought, faying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, but feek ye first the Kingdom of God;) the sense, 'tis very clear, will be comparative, and amount only to This: Be not so follicitous for the things of this prefent life, as to neglect the more important Concerns of That which is to come: But let your principal and chief Care be to fecure your eternal Interest; and the Bleffing of Providence upon your ordinary industry, will provide you such a proportion of temporal accommodations, as he fhall fee best and most expedient for you. In fome particular cafes, God has given extraordinary Examples of this kind; As in the inftance of Solomon, 1 Kings iii. 11; God faid unto him, Because thou haft afked for thyfelf riches, nor life of thine enemies, but—Understanding to discern judgment; Behold I have given thee a wife and an understanding heart; and I have alfo given thee that which thou hast not asked, both Riches and Honour. Our Saviour does not promife any thing of this nature to his Disciples,

not

the

be

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SER M. because his Kingdom is not of this world. But a competency of temporal Bleffings he encourages them to expect fhall be added unto them; always excepting the cafe of perfecution, to which is annexed a Promise of peculiar Rewards.

III. Thirdly; I OBSERVE further, that the Precept in the Text, when confidered as a general Command to all Chriftians, appears plainly intended to be understood with fome latitude, from the Reafon af figned by our Lord in the very words themselves, For after all these things do the Gentiles feek. Take no Thought what ye fhall eat, or what ye shall drink; For, after all these things do the Gentiles feek. The thing therefore here prohibited by our Lord to His difciples, is such a follicitude after the affairs of the World, as the Gentiles have, who know not God; who have neither a right Sense of the Providence of God, in difpofing of all temporal things here upon earth; nor That certain expectation, which the Gofpel has given us of an eternal Kingdom hereafter in the Heavens. Thefe men, (excepting some few Noble Spirits among

them,

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them, of whom the World was not wor- S E R M. thy;) the generality of them lived according to that Epicurean Maxim, Let us eat and drink, for to morrow we die; placing the whole of their happiness in fuch enjoyments, as they poffeffed in common with the Beasts that perifh. Which gratifications of sense, our Saviour commanded His Difciples to have no regard for, comparatively with their care for the Concerns of Eternity.

IV. Fourthly and Laftly; THAT the words of the Text, when applied to all Christians in general, are not to be understood in the ftrict and literal Senfe, but in That comparative manner I have now explained; appears further from the additional reason subjoined by our Saviour in the laft claufe: For your heavenly Father knoweth, that ye have need of all these things. Our heavenly Father's knowing that we have need of all these things, is not a reafon against our taking Thought for them in That method of Labour and honeft Industry, by which he himself, who knows that we have need of them, has appointed them to be obtained; but 'tis a reafon

only